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BOSS BR600 problem

I was using my br-600 recorder today. Everything seemed fine at first operating in 'guitar' recording mode but then I switched to 'mic' mode and started experiencing some trouble with the built in mic. There was a loud hum coming through the headphones before I even made a sound and I notice it was only coming through the left ear on the headphones. I recorded some vocals and listened through the right ear of the headphones and the sound was clear with no hum and then listened through the left headphone and the sound was badly clipped and had a loud background hum. I also found I can produce some additional interference in the left mic by moving my finger closer to it whereas when I do the same thing on the right mic there's no problem.
Can you tell me if you came across this yourself and is there any solution you know of to remove this interference, the onboard mics are simply unusable at the moment. I've tried plugging in the BR-600 where there's no other powered electrical equipment nearby that might cause interference but it hasn't helped reduce the hum.
I also got a loan of a cheap external dynamic mic and tried it out in 'mic1' of 'mic' mode and this worked fine.

I really like the onboard mic feature and I would be grateful for any help you might be able to give me.

Sounds like something has burned out or come loose in that mic's circuitry. I don't know how much comparison you have done with recording with the BR600s mics to recording with plugged-in dynamic mics (the BR600 does not have phantom power, so you can't use condensors that require it), but there is a world of difference. The built-ins have pretty lousy frequency response and actually pick up sound from the plastic casing of the recorder itself. It'll cost you $75 just to send the recorder to Boss to check out, so it's not worth it for this problem.
Go buy a pair of dynamics to plug in. I noticed a huge improvement in sound when I plugged a Shure SM57 in, went back and re-recorded every vocal I had done to that point. If you're in a budget situation, the GLS ES58 (vocal) and GLS es57 (instrument) mic are on Amazon for $30 each. I just picked up a pair of es57s, have not used for recording yet, but used one last night for live mandolin and it sounded very good.

I joined the site because I was finding the exact same problem wth a BR 600. I took the casing apart, removed the left mic from its holder, seperated the rubber covers which isolate it and cleaned it gently. I didn't detach it's wiring. I then reseated it. I lifted the headphone socket from it's mounting and reseated it. Replaced the cover and switched on again. There was no longer any hum nor did the left mic register my fingers over it.